Ossie Michelin

Ossie Michlein is a Labrador Inuk journalist and filmmaker from the community of North West River. Son of a trapper and a nurse from Ontario, he grew up in the bush spending weeks at a time with his parents and family in tents and cabins across Central Labrador. Coming from a large family of storytellers, Ossie was always drawn to the ways stories bring people together and teach them about the world and each other. 

After graduating with a Bachelor of Journalism from Concordia University, Ossie worked as a video journalist with APTN National News for five years, where his work documenting Indigenous-led protests against the fracking industry received international acclaim, including a nomination for a World Indigenous Television Broadcaster Network Award. In 2015 Ossie began freelancing as a journalist and worked for many national and international publications and broadcasters, including the Guardian, the CBC, Vox Media, TVOntario, Canadian Geographic, the Indigenous Peoples Atlas of Canada, and many more, including a brief period of being an editor-at-large with Canadian Art Magazine before it shut down due to the Covid-19 pandemic. 

For his entire journalism career Ossie has reported on Indigenous arts, particularly Inuit art, where he has edited, written numerous articles and reviews. In 2021 he was a judge for the Inuit Art Foundation’s Kenojuak Ashevak Memorial Award and spoke on an international panel hosted by the Inuit Art Foundation and the Smithsonian about Queer Inuit Art.

In 2017 Ossie won the grand prix for the Point of View Photography Award from the Canadian Museum for Human Rights for his photo of Amanda Polchies from the Elsipogtog First Nation kneeling in prayer with an eagle feather in her outstretched hand before a line of riot police at a 2013 anti-fracking protest. The Huffington Post identified it as one of the defining images of Canada in the 21st Century, and Indian Country Today called it “the feather heard round the world.”

Working in journalism led Ossie to discover documentary filmmaking and in 2021 he launched his first short documentary film with the National Film Board of Canada, Evan’s Drum, which toured film festivals the world to audience and critical acclaim. That same year Ossie wrote and directed a multi award-winning podcast series with Terre Innue and CBC Podcasts called Telling Our Twisted Histories.

In 2021 Ossie completed a Certificate in Environmental Conservation at the University of Guelph with the goal of better understanding environmental protections in Canada and to improve upon his science reporting. It was during this time that he discovered his fascination: the overlap where science and Indigenous knowledge meet. Through a combination of science journalism, Indigenous storytelling, and nature interpretation Ossie has carved a path for himself as an Indigenous science reporter.

Ossie is basically what happens when you combine a dreamer with a go-getter personality. At Terrarium we feel ever so lucky that he dreams for us.